JohnnyCanuck:Pilikia: JohnnyCanuck: Pilikia: there's no evidence of arthritis or pieces of connective tissue floating around in there, I really don't know.

I assume you've had all the relevant blood tests done?

Dude, don't even get me started, lol. I'm done paying the out-of-pocket portion of the lab fees as well. I'm just going to get crankier and crankier from the pain until they have to shoot me like an old dog. ;-)

Yeah...sorry man. Sometimes I forget I have the privilege of Canadian med. I'm going through something similar but i'm actually trying my best to avoid pills.

Me too until recently. I hate being 40. It was like somebody flipped a switch - suddenly needed glasses and suddenly started coming up gimpy during my "workouts" (they're very low-impact). If I ever meet the Grim Reaper I'm going to kick him in the nuts.

johnny_vegas:Pilikia: Where are all of these morally flexible doctors anyway? I don't need 75 Oxy's a week, and I wouldn't fark anybody for drugs, but I'd sure as hell maintain someone's medical group web site for a steady supply of Tylenol 3. Say 10-15 a month?

I've given up on my doctor and her unreasoning fear of the DEA. No more appointments that go like this:

ME: "I'm in some serious pain."

DOC: "Any idea what's causing it?"

ME: "Well, I was an amateur kickboxer for 13 years."

DOC: "Any recent injuries?"

ME: "No, but for the last 10 years I haven't been able to turn my head or bend my left knee when I wake up in the morning. Takes an hour or two to get full mobility."

DOC: "Hmmm. I could send you to a specialist, who could schedule an MRI."

ME: "We did that last year. Remember? Came back negative."

DOC: "You could try yoga. Have you tried yoga?"

ME: "Every other day for the past 25 years."

DOC: "What about a chiropractor."

ME: "Once. Made it worse. Never going back. Doc, I'm in some serious pain here. It is truly affecting my quality of life."

DOC: "Try hot baths and ibuprofen, and if you're still in pain next time I see you, maybe I can prescribe you some of the 800mg ibuprofen."

ME: (under my breath) "Or I could take four over-the-counter Advil, still be in pain, and save myself the farking co-pay."

Pilikia: Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: Pilikia: Where are all of these morally flexible doctors anyway? I don't need 75 Oxy's a week, and I wouldn't fark anybody for drugs, but I'd sure as hell maintain someone's medical group web site for a steady supply of Tylenol 3. Say 10-15 a month?

Try another doctor. "Doctor shopping" isn't just for addicts, it's for people not getting help from their current doctors.

Pilikia:Me too until recently. I hate being 40. It was like somebody flipped a switch - suddenly needed glasses and suddenly started coming up gimpy during my "workouts" (they're very low-impact). If I ever meet the Grim Reaper I'm going to kick him in the nuts.

It is somehow the Grim Reaper's fault that for a decade your hobby was playing "who can kick the crap out of the other guy faster"?

As someone who used to take 400mgs a day, I found that while bad, if you're hooked long enough, your body assimiliates. It actually got to the point where the only time I could go was if I went into withdrawal for a few days (which I did at the end of every prescription). Then when I finally got my pills back, my...body...would...release.

royone:Pilikia: ME: "No, but for the last 10 years I haven't been able to turn my head or bend my left knee when I wake up in the morning. Takes an hour or two to get full mobility."

Have you tried a Feldenkrais physical therapist?

I haven't, and I appreciate the thought. But I've heard of it, and it's fairly similar to a subset of the exercises I do already.

I typically get up around 6:00am after a waking up 3-4 times in the night because of pain, "Fark!" and "Shiat!" my way through the house in the dark and on out to the garage. Which is where I work out. By 8:00am or so, after my shower, I am usually pain-free until about 3-4:00pm. Thinking I'll try a standing desk in my office next, since movement is the only non-narcotic anything that seems to work.

BigLuca:Pilikia: Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: Pilikia: Where are all of these morally flexible doctors anyway? I don't need 75 Oxy's a week, and I wouldn't fark anybody for drugs, but I'd sure as hell maintain someone's medical group web site for a steady supply of Tylenol 3. Say 10-15 a month?

Try another doctor. "Doctor shopping" isn't just for addicts, it's for people not getting help from their current doctors.

jst3p:Pilikia: Me too until recently. I hate being 40. It was like somebody flipped a switch - suddenly needed glasses and suddenly started coming up gimpy during my "workouts" (they're very low-impact). If I ever meet the Grim Reaper I'm going to kick him in the nuts.

It is somehow the Grim Reaper's fault that for a decade your hobby was playing "who can kick the crap out of the other guy faster"?

No doubt, I earned this pain. But it would be an excellent way to go out, don't you think? :-)

Actually, nope. He matriculated from the University of Louisville (in KY) in 2002. Poor guy, I'd think he's too young to have to pay drooling junkies for sex.

And in case it hasn't been answered upthread, SR usually means Sustained Release. You know, slowly dissolving. And my Wellbutrin is XL, which somehow means it's supposed to last an eXtra Long time.

Ah, Wellbutrin. I was on SR for awhile, at the lowest possible dose. Everything was great (except I had no weight loss *shakes fist*) until my hair started falling out. Dropped that shiat like a baked potato. Fortunately, I had no problem coming off it.

I met a woman who had completed rehab. She told me she was taking 80 percocets a day until she finally got clean. She said she had multiple identities/doctors/pharmacies and would beg/borrow/steal pills from people she knew who also used them - illegally and legally.

My dad was also addicted to percocets. I don't know how many he took each day, but he had stashes of them in hiding places all over the house. My brother called him (and my mom, although she had ample reason to take massive amounts of pain relievers) "80 year-old junkies". Now that dad is in extended care he gets his meds on schedule and has somewhat better mental acuity than he did a couple of years ago.

you have pee hands:Pilikia: DOC: "Try hot baths and ibuprofen, and if you're still in pain next time I see you, maybe I can prescribe you some of the 800mg ibuprofen."

800mg ibuprofen is the dumbest farking thing. Yeah, I'm gonna go stand in line at the pharmacy for 20 minutes to get the exact same thing I can pick up at the grocery store when I'm there anyway. Brilliant.

WillofJ2:His license is only suspended, why is this guy not in jail? BS. She was probably selling a fair amount of them and splitting profit. Better reason for universal records then addicts and these Drug dealers posing as physicians?

I must be the worst drug addict ever. I've tried Percocet, Oxy, Cyclobenzaprine, Lortab, Naproxen... Nothing makes me feel better. Most of the time, I just pull a muscle in my back and I just wait it out. I've nevertried to take 5 at a time, but I get nothing from pills.

boyvoyeur:I must be the worst drug addict ever. I've tried Percocet, Oxy, Cyclobenzaprine, Lortab, Naproxen... Nothing makes me feel better. Most of the time, I just pull a muscle in my back and I just wait it out. I've nevertried to take 5 at a time, but I get nothing from pills.

LawPD:She's got to be selling them. Has to be. Because if she's taking 300 oxycodone a month that woman ain't never pooping again.

You never know. When I worked on rehab (as in stroke patients and joint replacements), some woman called the floor, mistakenly thinking we were the other kind of rehab, and said she needed help for her 30-50 lortab/day habit. I was impressed she could find the phone.

I'm surprised with Ky's new narcotic law, he could get by with it that long. I get 30 lortab every 6 months, and I have to take a drug test once a year (randomly), am subject to pill counts whenever my dr feels like it, have to sign a narcotics contract, am subject to a KASPAR (Ky's prescription database) report every 3 months. All because I dislocated my hip and now have arthritis.

Eh, I'm not really sure why the pharmacist got all worked up over the amount of pills by themselves. I'm a chronic pain patient and I fill prescriptions for 300 oxycodone and 180 morphine pills per month. If course if the pharmacist suspects that there is no reason for the script, that's a different sorry. But a large amount of pain pills by themselves don't really point to anything strange.

Pilikia:Where are all of these morally flexible doctors anyway? I don't need 75 Oxy's a week, and I wouldn't fark anybody for drugs, but I'd sure as hell maintain someone's medical group web site for a steady supply of Tylenol 3. Say 10-15 a month?

I've given up on my doctor and her unreasoning fear of the DEA. No more appointments that go like this:

[stingy doctor story]

/and no, I'm not ordering off the internet

I went though the same crap with my doctor. I did all the MRIs and non narcotic stuff she wanted me to do and tried to tell her the NSAIDs did fark-all. I had to beg just to get 20 vicodin to last me a couple of months. When I got back from Iraq after further injuring my back and dicking up my shoulder, I went to the VA. I told the doc the same thing, how I've tried Skelaxin, and cyclobenzaprine, and they help -somewhat- but not as well as the vicodin. The doc looks at her screen and says "I'll write you a script for 120 a month...will that be enough?" 'Uh.......I guess so."

dahmers love zombie:300 oxys a month?(checks price on SR)Holy cripes, you could make a good goddamn living marketing those. More than I make per month, that's for goddamn sure. And I don't even get laid as part of the bargain.

Pilikia:JohnnyCanuck: Pilikia: JohnnyCanuck: Pilikia: there's no evidence of arthritis or pieces of connective tissue floating around in there, I really don't know.

I assume you've had all the relevant blood tests done?

Dude, don't even get me started, lol. I'm done paying the out-of-pocket portion of the lab fees as well. I'm just going to get crankier and crankier from the pain until they have to shoot me like an old dog. ;-)

Yeah...sorry man. Sometimes I forget I have the privilege of Canadian med. I'm going through something similar but i'm actually trying my best to avoid pills.

Me too until recently. I hate being 40. It was like somebody flipped a switch - suddenly needed glasses and suddenly started coming up gimpy during my "workouts" (they're very low-impact). If I ever meet the Grim Reaper I'm going to kick him in the nuts.

I am 41 now. Really starting to regret the years I worked for Rent-A-Center in my mid 20's delivering furniture and appliances to upstairs apartments all by myself. Every day is becoming a new adventure in back pain.

Sun Khan:Just had those for the first time ever this week. Scared the crap out of me, returning the balance of pills to CVS and sucking up the pain.

/didn't get laid

When I was about 19 or so I had the pleasure of having the Army take out my wisdom teeth. ("No we don't do gas here. Gas is for pusses. You're not a puss are ya, private? No, what I'm gonna do is jam this needle full of novicane right into the roof of your mouth.") They gave me some percocet and sent me to my room. Well, that night I am sitting there with brainful of bad decision making ability and a bottle of pills. A bottle that says "Warning. Alcohol may intensify the effect of this drug" Really? How so? I know how I can find out. Roomate had half a bottle of Jack in the fridge. I decide I will take a shot of jack, sit down and watch TV and see what happens different. Well that's the last Goddamn thing I remember. My whole plan was just to take one shot. Well I wake up the next morning. Puke.Farking. Everywhere. And an empty bottle of Jack on the floor. I had no plans to drink it all, and I don't remember doing it. But I remember thinking I was actualy surprised I wasn't dead.Roomate walks in shortly after I woke up. Sees the mess, sees the empty bottle, says "You're buying me a new one" and leaves.

Pilikia:johnny_vegas: Pilikia: Where are all of these morally flexible doctors anyway? I don't need 75 Oxy's a week, and I wouldn't fark anybody for drugs, but I'd sure as hell maintain someone's medical group web site for a steady supply of Tylenol 3. Say 10-15 a month?

I've given up on my doctor and her unreasoning fear of the DEA. No more appointments that go like this:

ME: "I'm in some serious pain."

DOC: "Any idea what's causing it?"

ME: "Well, I was an amateur kickboxer for 13 years."

DOC: "Any recent injuries?"

ME: "No, but for the last 10 years I haven't been able to turn my head or bend my left knee when I wake up in the morning. Takes an hour or two to get full mobility."

DOC: "Hmmm. I could send you to a specialist, who could schedule an MRI."

ME: "We did that last year. Remember? Came back negative."

DOC: "You could try yoga. Have you tried yoga?"

ME: "Every other day for the past 25 years."

DOC: "What about a chiropractor."

ME: "Once. Made it worse. Never going back. Doc, I'm in some serious pain here. It is truly affecting my quality of life."

DOC: "Try hot baths and ibuprofen, and if you're still in pain next time I see you, maybe I can prescribe you some of the 800mg ibuprofen."

ME: (under my breath) "Or I could take four over-the-counter Advil, still be in pain, and save myself the farking co-pay."

DOC: "What's that now?"

ME: "Nothing, thanks for your time."

/and no, I'm not ordering off the internet

I hear you - for me it was a combination of years of martial arts and a sneeze. When I complained to my doctor about the pain she said "it builds character"Fortunately, I live in LA where there are alternative pain medications available

DanTheMan1024:dahmers love zombie: 300 oxys a month?(checks price on SR)Holy cripes, you could make a good goddamn living marketing those. More than I make per month, that's for goddamn sure. And I don't even get laid as part of the bargain.

I had my leg cut off earlier this year, and my doc only gave me 60 Oxycodone per month. One Oxy a day was more than enough to kill all the pain and leave me high as a weather balloon. I really think that 10 pills per day would have killed me.

swangoatman:DanTheMan1024: dahmers love zombie: 300 oxys a month?(checks price on SR)Holy cripes, you could make a good goddamn living marketing those. More than I make per month, that's for goddamn sure. And I don't even get laid as part of the bargain.

Summer Glau's Love Slave:I had my leg cut off earlier this year, and my doc only gave me 60 Oxycodone per month. One Oxy a day was more than enough to kill all the pain and leave me high as a weather balloon. I really think that 10 pills per day would have killed me.

/Good times.

Of course it would have if you took it right away. But if you have a persistent spinal injury and take one oxy a day for two months, it won't work anymore. You'll eventually need two, then four, then six and then, like me, in only eight months, you'll be taking 12 40mg oxys a day just to stay out of withdrawal.

frepnog:Pilikia: JohnnyCanuck: Pilikia: JohnnyCanuck: Pilikia: there's no evidence of arthritis or pieces of connective tissue floating around in there, I really don't know.

I assume you've had all the relevant blood tests done?

Dude, don't even get me started, lol. I'm done paying the out-of-pocket portion of the lab fees as well. I'm just going to get crankier and crankier from the pain until they have to shoot me like an old dog. ;-)

Yeah...sorry man. Sometimes I forget I have the privilege of Canadian med. I'm going through something similar but i'm actually trying my best to avoid pills.

Me too until recently. I hate being 40. It was like somebody flipped a switch - suddenly needed glasses and suddenly started coming up gimpy during my "workouts" (they're very low-impact). If I ever meet the Grim Reaper I'm going to kick him in the nuts.

I am 41 now. Really starting to regret the years I worked for Rent-A-Center in my mid 20's delivering furniture and appliances to upstairs apartments all by myself. Every day is becoming a new adventure in back pain.

Same here. 25 years of playing goalkeeper and the couple of years I worked loading cabinets off the end of an assembly line means my almost-40-year-old self can barely manage to roll out of bed most mornings. You can only throw yourself at the ground so many times before it starts taking it's toll.

Thankfully, I'll be hitting the out-of-pocket max on my insurance here in a couple weeks (Mrs. Gratch is having twins), so I can actually have someone other than the Instacare doc look at it and it won't cost me an arm and a leg.